Our Mission

The Mission of the Institute is to provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write in order to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to national defense.

The fourth edition of Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Simmons's popular history of the U.S. Marine Corps has been updated and revised. It reflects the latest scholarship on events reaching back to the Corps's beginnings in November 1775, when the Second Continental Congress authorized two battalions of American Marines, to 2001. As updated, it includes material on the tumultuous events of the last quarter-century in Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Bangladesh, Somalia, and Haiti.

With a foreword by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Jones, the book provides a lively chronicle of the Corps's participation in all the nation's wars, from the American Revolution to Desert Storm. Highlights of the work are the Marines' legendary contributions at such places as Bladensburg, Guantanamo, Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Inchon, Chosin, Hue, and Khe Sanh. While the focus of this history is on the big wars, it never slights events in between, among them the humanitarian missions that have helped define the Corps. Nor does the author neglect the intermittent but never-ending fight for the Corps's survival at home where it faces periodic challenges from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and on occasion, unfriendly presidents. Few writers know the subject as intimately as General Simmons, who writes from firsthand experience in three wars and as the longtime head of the Corps's history division.

Edwin Howard Simmons, a retired Marine Corps brigadier general, served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam at every level of command and as director of Marine Corps history and museums for twenty-five years. He is the award-winning author of numerous books, including Dog Company Six and Through the Wheat.